Episode 131 - Hypo Hounds: The diabetic alert dogs reducing children's hospital admissions

As heart-warming ends to a series go, they don’t get much more heart-warming than this episode.

Hypo Hounds is a diabetic alert assistance charity, helping children with type 1 diabetes by training assistance dogs to not only detect hypos, fetch testing kits or even bring a bottle of Lucozade, but helping children to live with more independence and freedom, and families to communicate better and feel less burdened by the challenges of type 1 diabetes.

The woman behind Hypo Hounds is today’s guest, Jane Pearman. Jane and her husband trained their first hypo dog, Scooby, to help their daughter Sophie after she was diagnosed with brittle type 1 diabetes as well as other major health complications at the age of 9. At the time Jane was checking Sophie’s blood sugars every hour through the night, feeling understandably frightened and exhausted.

They didn’t know it at the time, but Scooby would inspire the journey to founding Hypo Hounds, which has now trained 54 dogs to date, reducing hospital admissions and giving children and their families much-needed independence and relief from the burden of living with diabetes.

Thanks to the help of Scooby and her second Hypo Hound Dori, Sophie, now 22, lives independently and remains an incredible spokesperson for the charity. Heart-warming, emotional, inspiring - I couldn’t urge you to press play on this episode more! 

CONNECT WITH HYPO HOUNDS: 
Follow Hypo Hounds on Instagram. 
Follow Hypo Hounds on Facebook. 
Visit the Hypo Hounds website.